This webinar is a reprise of the keynote address presented at the 2026 MHPN Conference in May, offering attendees another opportunity to experience this timely and impactful presentation.

Kiana Wenzell, Co-Executive Director of Design Core Detroit, explores historic preservation as an undeniably powerful strategy for community repair, recovery, and resilience. She contends that true resilience is more than simply “bouncing back”—it is the capacity of communities to use historic preservation to bend without breaking, to adapt and repair with creativity, grace, and endurance. Through the lens of inclusive design, Wenzell explores how preservation can advance three core dimensions of resilience—social, economic, and environmental. She highlights how Detroit serves as a “Living Laboratory” for these ideas, demonstrating how design and preservation intersect to drive community-led transformation. The lecture will include examples of architectural adaptation and public space renewal, such as the revival of Michigan Central Station into an innovation campus, the transformation of The Congregation church into a thriving neighborhood hub, and projects like the Detroit Riverwalk, Dequindre Cut, and Dreamtroit, which foster accessibility and connection. Wenzell will also discuss environmental stewardship, showcasing how Detroit organizations are upcycling waste into new materials and reimagining vacant land as spaces for cultural and environmental art. The presentation will highlight community-led design, including how residents have reclaimed the front porch as a platform for storytelling, neighborhood memory, and resistance. Ultimately, Wenzell celebrates preservation’s primacy to Resilience by Design—a philosophy of designing for continuity—where cities thrive by being continually remixed, inclusive, and future-ready. This topic is especially relevant as preservationists and urban practitioners face growing challenges: declining civic engagement, economic disinvestment, social fragmentation, and environmental vulnerability. Wenzell’s keynote proposes an integrated framework that centers repair, recovery, and adaptation as essential preservation strategies. Using Detroit as a model, she illustrates how inclusive design can address these challenges through social, economic, and environmental resilience.